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Will DOJ Prosecute Mark Meadows?; President Biden Surveys Tornado Destruction; COVID Cases Surging. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired December 15, 2021 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:00]

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Appreciate your time on INSIDE POLITICS today. We will see you tomorrow.

Ana Cabrera -- don't forget, you can also listen to our podcast. Download the -- INSIDE POLITICS wherever you get your podcasts.

Ana Cabrera picks up our coverage right now. Have a good day.

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: Hello. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thanks so much for being here.

We began with brand-new warning signs the pandemic is getting worse here in the U.S., as concerns mount over the Omicron variant. Just in the last couple of hours, CNN has learned that at least four more colleges and universities, including NYU and Princeton, are shifting classes and finals online due to an increase in COVID cases.

And this is after Cornell University announced this week it's shutting down its main campus after more than 900 new cases of COVID were reported in just the last week.

There are also new outbreaks in professional sports, from hockey to basketball and football. Today, the Cleveland Browns announced six players, including quarterback Baker Mayfield, are now on the reserve COVID-19 list. This is after the team's head coach tested positive and news from earlier this week that more than 60 NFL players are infected, according to a leak source, and that was just on Monday and Tuesday alone.

So let's get right to our senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen.

Elizabeth, this is starting to feel a lot like the early days of the pandemic, sadly.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It really...

CABRERA: What more can you tell us about colleges and universities and NFL and other outbreaks?

COHEN: It really does feel like deja vu.

Let's take a look at universities that have moved either classes or exams to online. So these are some very prominent places, Middlebury College, Princeton, DePaul, Southern New Hampshire, Cornell University. New York University is strongly encouraging professors to move their exams to online. They say that they're seeing an acceleration of COVID cases. And this is what they are doing to keep people safe.

Now, I'm sure a lot of people are wondering, is it Omicron? Is it Delta? Not everyone has done genotyping. So we don't know. But certainly some of them are -- we know that at least some of them are Omicron. Now this is happening at the same time, Ana, as you mentioned, that the -- that sporting events are also and sporting sports teams are also being affected.

So let's take a look at that. In the Cleveland -- for the Cleveland Browns, their COVID reserve list, they added six players just today. They added eight yesterday. The NFL says that 28 players tested positive yesterday. The NHL, the hockey folks, have postponed their ninth game this season.

They postponed their game last night. That was the ninth time they have done that this season because of COVID. So, as we can see, things are ramping up in this these are the steps that these organizations are taking to keep people safe -- Ana.

CABRERA: And now I understand CDC vaccine advisers will meet tomorrow on the J&J COVID-19 vaccine and some potential changes to their recommendations.

What more can you tell us about that?

COHEN: So a source is telling me, Ana, that they are going to be reviewing safety information for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

You will remember that there is a very rare, but a very dangerous blood clotting event that's been associated with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. So they're going to talk through new data. My source said that they very well could limit who gets Johnson & Johnson.

And while people have various -- men and women have had these blood clots, and there's been a variety of ages, the highest rate has been young women, women under the age of 50. So they may say women that age shouldn't be getting Johnson & Johnson.

Now, in many ways, this is not such a big deal, because Johnson & Johnson is such a -- the number of people vaccinated with it are such a tiny number compared to Pfizer and Moderna. It would still be OK. We would be able to vaccinate people with -- even if we took Johnson & Johnson off the table for some populations.

But, still, there could be a warning, in effect, issued for Johnson & Johnson tomorrow. We will wait and see what the CDC advisers have to say.

CABRERA: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you for staying on top of all of this. Really appreciate that update. Let's bring in Dr. Paul Offit. He's the director of the Vaccine

Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He's also a member of the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee.

Dr. Offit, thank you for being with us.

Let's start where Elizabeth left off, the CDC taking a second look at the J&J vaccine. What do you think? Should it be taken off the table?

DR. PAUL OFFIT, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: Well, again, need we to see the data. So we will pay attention to what happens at tomorrow's meeting.

We do know that there is, as Elizabeth Cohen said, a very rare, but very real serious side effect, which is clotting, including severe clotting, so-called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis, which is basically a blood clot in the brain, which has caused sort of rare fatalities, about five for six fatalities so far from that.

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It does appear to be a young woman phenomenon. So then you could argue, while the vaccine clearly is OF value, I think now especially as a two-dose vaccine -- and it's roughly 94 percent effective at preventing illness -- that -- and some people would prefer that vaccine, that maybe should just be limited to, say, people who are male or people who are older.

Again, we will see what the ACIP, Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, says tomorrow.

CABRERA: OK. So obviously, there's the issue of the blood clots. But isn't efficacy the other issue here?

Because we know that it was recommended that people get boosters after just two months of getting that one dose, even though that was deemed fully vaccinated.

OFFIT: Right.

I think, in retrospect, this was always a two dose vaccine. I mean, when we -- we, the FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee, reviewed the data on February 26, Johnson & Johnson was in the midst of doing a two-dose trolleys, a 30,000-person prospective placebo-controlled two-dose trial, which they finished a few months after that meeting, whereas the mRNA vaccines, the Pfizer vaccine, the Moderna vaccines, were 94 to 95 percent effective against preventing all COVID illness.

What the J&J vaccine was, after one dose, was about 75 percent effective. Now they showed recently that with two doses separated by two months, that they had 94 percent efficacy. So they were right back to where the mRNA vaccines were.

I think that people should consider that vaccine to be a two-dose vaccine, with the second dose being given at least two months after the first. CABRERA: OK. And, of course, Omicron is haunting all of us right now.

We don't know whether all these vaccines are effective against it. And we do know Pfizer's isn't as effective. And we're still waiting on data for the other vaccines.

But, meantime, universities are struggling, sports teams are struggling, even with large portions of their communities vaccinated. they're seemingly following the guidelines, taking all the precautions. So what's going on there?

OFFIT: I think what people should realize is that the two doses of an mRNA-containing vaccine, for example, remain highly effective against serious illness, meaning the kind of illness that causes you to seek a doctor or go to the hospital or go to the intensive care unit.

But these vaccines over time, all of them, are not going to be great at protecting against mild or asymptomatic infections. They're not. I mean, I think we were seduced in some ways by those phase three trials last December, when we saw 95 percent protection against even mild illness. But those were three-month trials. All those participants had recently received a second dose.

Now, you're seeing six months later, nine months later, that, as neutralizing antibodies fade, which have to happen, that there is some decrease then in protection against a mild illness.

But what you are seeing -- and I think people should be reassured by this -- is there's a separation or a group continued separation between cases and then severe cases, because both natural infection and vaccination will protect against severe disease. So where you see the cases, you're seeing less severe cases.

So that's actually a good thing.

CABRERA: So what about boosters? Because at least a handful of universities are saying they're now going to require boosters for students.

And I know you have been arguing against universal boosters, saying they're just not needed. But we do now know two doses don't work nearly as well as three against Omicron, which is spreading like crazy right now. The CDC director, Dr. Walensky, Dr. Fauci, they have been urging Americans to get their boosters, because they want to stop the spread, right?

That's how this virus mutates. That's how people who are unvaccinated ultimately end up in the hospital. So, have you changed your mind on boosters? What do you think?

OFFIT: Well, I still think, even from the data that Pfizer recently presented, that with two doses of an mRNA-containing vaccine, that you still are fairly highly protected against severe illness. So, that's good.

But, again, I think where Omicron is difficult is that you're -- is that, even if you had two doses of vaccine, protection against mild illness isn't as good. And so I think it is reasonable then to get a third dose to boost that immunity for at least a period of time in protects not just against Omicron, but also to some extent against Delta, because you're not going to be protected as well against mild illness over time.

And so that's the advantage of a booster. But, remember, if that's the strategy, if the strategy is boosting to keep your neutralizing antibodies up, even after a third dose, that will fade over time. So I think it's a solution I guess for the winter months, but we may find it next summer that again neutralizing antibodies have faded.

Omicron is a little scary, because it has clearly taken over for Delta in South Africa. And Delta was a highly contagious virus, I mean, as contagious as chicken pox, which is a highly contagious virus. So Omicron is a worry.

CABRERA: Yes, and we're hearing the rate of Omicron spread is now doubling every couple of days, according to the CDC director, so we will keep watching.

Dr. Paul Offit, thank you so much for your time and expertise. Really appreciate you.

President Biden is in Kentucky this hour, touring the hardest-hit areas ravaged by a string of deadly tornadoes. That state is enduring just heartbreaking loss. On just one street in Bowling Green, 11 people from two families were killed, including two babies.

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CNN's chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, is traveling with the president.

Kaitlan, take us through what the president is seeing and saying.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: He's getting an up-close look, Ana, at this devastation here.

He is touring a neighborhood right now in Mayfield, Kentucky. That's where that candle factory is. And he got a briefing earlier from officials, including the governor. That's going over the nuts and bolts of everything. What do they need? What are they doing? What kind of federal resources are they expecting to tap into going forward?

But he's also looking at the human aspect of this, which is going into these neighborhoods where people have lost everything. And they are going and looking at this storm that has just devastated a lot of these areas. And this is where President Biden says he wants to listen, he wants to hear these stories, and talk to these people.

And then he's going to come here to Dawson Springs, where I am, where an entire neighborhood behind me has just been completely leveled, essentially, and trees are just snapped in half like they were matchsticks. This is where Scott Jennings, our friend, is from.

And so this is something that the president is going to also come and see, get a briefing here in Dawson Springs as well, and talk to people on the ground about what they're going through, because, here in Dawson Springs, when it comes to the rebuilding process, it's expected to be a long one, if you talk to officials around here, because they say the city -- if you look at the population, about a third of the city lives beneath the poverty line.

The average median household income is just over $25,000. And some of these people who lost their homes do not have insurance. And so when it comes to the process of rebuilding it and recovering it, that's going to be a long road for them, in addition to what they're doing right now, and finding enough space for them now for where to live.

Of course, we have got the holidays coming up and dealing with that. And also just walking around and talking to people who right now they're looking through the rubble here. They are looking for family photos that are just strewn across the ground here. They are finding the ashes of pets that they love so much they had cremated, and going through the rubble and just looking for any of these kinds of mementos that, of course, they don't have access to much longer.

We should note, another unwelcome sign, rain is on the way to this area. It's going to be raining over the next several days. So they don't have a lot of time left. So they're doing that, and really just talking to their communities here and dealing with the devastation that they experienced over the weekend.

And, of course, this is now drawing national attention as it has for several days. It's getting a visit by the president, who says he is here and he wants to listen and talk to people on the ground.

CABRERA: Kaitlan Collins, we know you're going to be staying closely on these developments.

We're watching right now the motorcade there. We're looking at, it looks like, community members coming up to the president's entourage as well. This is Mayfield, Kentucky. And now we have the president getting out of the car and greeting some of what I believe to be community members who are there on the ground awaiting his visit.

And it was important for him to come here, right, Kaitlan, to be able to not only see firsthand, but to really show that he understands the depth of their loss.

COLLINS: Yes, because it's not just the part of making sure that FEMA is on the ground and making sure that they're talking about insurance claims and what that's going to look like.

Obviously, those things are critical to people. But it's also the president here coming to show that he understands what they're going through and talking about the pain of this. And he mentioned it on Saturday, right after the storms had hit, the sun had first come up. And we were first seeing the devastation the ground.

And what it was really looking like, because the storms, a lot of them hit overnight, which often -- I'm from Alabama. Those are the worst kinds because it's dark outside. And you can't always really see what to expect. People might be sleeping.

And the president was talking on Saturday about the loss of something like this, because it's not a situation where you can grab one or two valuables and make sure you have got something that's really important to you. It hits you. And, sometimes, you're not even wearing tennis shoes, you're not even prepared for this.

So we were reading one story. A woman was just wrapping gifts in the living room, didn't think it was going to get that bad. And then, of course, the next thing they know, the bathtub that they were hiding in was outside and they were being rained on.

And so I think the president was trying to talk about that on Saturday of just how overwhelmed and rattled people can be after going through something like this, which is completely understandable, of course. And so that's the other aspect often of a presidential visit to something like this to see the damage, is not just to draw attention and say, yes, we are deploying federal resources here.

We're also here just to comfort people and to reassure them that people do see their pain, they do feel their pain, and they do understand what it is that they're going through.

CABRERA: He's taking on that consoler in chief role right now. We see him holding the hand of one of those folks who he's greeting in Mayfield, Kentucky right now, as they're surrounded by so much devastation and you see all of that equipment brought in to help clear the debris caused by these twisters that ripped up the town of Mayfield.

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Again, dozens of people died in Kentucky alone, including, we know, an infant as young as 2 months old. Just learning about her story and how she and her siblings were in a bathtub, and they were covered with cushions to try to protect them. And yet you just couldn't escape the wrath of Mother Nature.

And so President Biden trying to let these people know the federal government will be with them through it all. And we know he's not just going to visit Mayfield, Kentucky. He will also be touring neighborhoods in other areas of Kentucky and other states. He will be heading to Princeton, Kentucky, and he will also be heading to Fort Campbell, Kentucky, later this afternoon.

And we will anticipate his remarks as well later today. Again, these pictures in Mayfield, Kentucky, right now. You can just see all of the chaos surrounding the people.

And, Kaitlan, talk to us a little bit more just about, I guess, what this moment means, given where the president is in his presidency and how the American people feel about the job he's doing.

COLLINS: Yes, of course, this comes as we're in a moment where he's coming up on one year in office. And, often, presidents are judged by the events that happened and how they handle them. And, sometimes, storms like this one and natural disasters can really

define a presidency. We have certainly seen that with some of his predecessors. This, of course, is a moment where -- when you talk to people about Biden's strengths, and what he is best at when he's in office, this is often one that people point out, critics and fans alike, where they say he does have a way of -- an ability to empathize with people.

And, as you noted, when people often say consoler in chief is a term that they use to refer to him as, because it is a moment where it's not about anything else that you're doing in office. It's about meeting people on the ground, meeting the moment, talking about what's going on, and making sure they have the resources, especially at a place like Kentucky, where they had an ice storm about a year ago.

Now they're dealing with this. You see President Biden there going up to people who are just surrounded by utter devastation and destruction. And it becomes more clearer by the day. Every single day that has passed since these storms first hit, they get a better picture of this.

And there's no good timing for this, certainly not right before the holidays. And this is something that is a new reality. And if you have ever lived through a tornado before or you have seen something like this, I think the governor of Kentucky said this is one of the worst and most deadly tornadoes they have had in their state.

You understand that this is not a process that only is just a few weeks. Yes, cleaning up the debris, which they are really starting to do today, is a big aspect of it. They certainly want to start doing that before the rain comes tomorrow and over the next several days.

But this is a process that can take years. It's not something that just happens overnight or happens within a few weeks where they do have this process of cleaning up. It's something that affects this community for a long time.

And so, of course, long after the national attention has gone here, this is still something these communities will be dealing with. And so I think that's part of what plays into President Biden's visit today. He also said he wanted to make sure this visit was timed that it didn't interfere with those initial recovery efforts.

Of course, that's a big aspect of this. And you don't want to bring a presidential visit, which accompanies a lot of staff and a lot of security on the ground here. That's why he waited until Wednesday to come and visit and see what's going on.

But, also, I just want to say seeing it firsthand also changes how you view it, because you can see the amazing images that CNN has taken of it. We have had a huge team here on the ground ever since early Saturday morning. But seeing it firsthand does change it for you.

CABRERA: Yes, I can only imagine. Thank you so much, Kaitlan Collins, for your reporting.

We will continue to follow the president's visit. We will bring updates to our viewers as we get them.

Meantime, the ball is now in the Justice Department's court. And so the question is, will the DOJ prosecute former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for criminal contempt of Congress?

We will discuss that.

Plus, soon, the Federal Reserve will announce its plan to tackle rising inflation, but they will have to do it without sparking a recession.

And Derek Chauvin changing his plea to guilty in the federal civil rights case against him, but why the change of heart?

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CABRERA: The case of Mark Meadows now under the microscope at the Justice Department.

Late last night, the House voted to hold former President Trump's chief of staff in criminal contempt of Congress. And that puts in motion the process of sending this referral through the Justice Department and the courts to decide whether it is legally viable to prosecute.

Now, Meadows stopped cooperating with the January 6 Committee after initially providing thousands of records, but apparently he doesn't want to answer questions about them, since he won't sit for a deposition.

Yet the contempt vote was mostly along party lines. Only two Republicans voted for the contempt referral. They're both on the select committee, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. Congresswoman Cheney relived the chaos and horrors of that day by reading frantic text messages sent to Meadows by Republican lawmakers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): Some of those text messages, Madam Speaker, came from members in the chamber right now, members who understood that a violent assault was under way at the Capitol, members who pleaded with the chief of staff to get the president to take action.

"Mark," one member said, "he needs to stop this now." In all caps, "TELL THEM TO GO HOME."

[13:25:07]

"POTUS has to come out firmly and tell the protesters to dissipate. Someone is going to get killed."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CABRERA: Let's discuss with CNN senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig and CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp.

Elie, this is now in the hands of the DOJ. We're told it was sent over at 12:01 p.m. today. Do you think the Justice Department will indeed pursue a criminal prosecution?

ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Ana, I think Mark Meadows should be charged criminally. And here's why.

It's a different case from Steve Bannon, first of all. Bannon, of course, was not a member of the executive branch at the time in question, and he completely stonewalled the committee. So, in that respect, he has an even weaker executive privilege defense than Mark Meadows does.

But that doesn't mean Meadows has a good one. Most importantly, Meadows, unlike Bannon, appears to have waived the privilege, meaning to have given it away. He wrote a book about it. And he produced thousands of documents to the committee.

I don't know how legally you say here are these documents, they're not privileged, you can have them, but I can't talk about them. That's privileged. Also, let's remember, both these guys are trying to invoke executive privilege on behalf of a former president. The federal courts have told us that doesn't fly just in the last couple of weeks.

Now, will Merrick Garland charge? I think it's 50/50. I think it's a coin toss. I think he has been timid in his prosecution and investigation of anything political and anything relating to January 6. So I think that's a 50/50 call.

CABRERA: Elie, obviously, this move certainly sends a message, but does it potentially shut the door on actually getting Meadows to talk?

HONIG: Yes, so a criminal prosecution does not compel testimony. It's just meant to punish and deter.

One thing that could happen, though, if DOJ agrees with this, they can bring a charge. And then if Meadows agrees to testify, in their discretion, prosecutors can say, fine. You testify truthfully and fully, and we will drop these charges. That's one way this could go.

CABRERA: S.E., a number of the new texts revealed were from unnamed GOP lawmakers.

And in one of those text messages -- this one, I keep thinking about. This was sent a day after the election. One lawmaker texted this: "Here's an aggressive strategy. Why can't the states Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and other R-controlled statehouses declare this B.S. and just send their own electors to vote and have it go to SCOTUS?"

Aggressive strategy is one way to describe it. An attack on our democracy is another. And some of these people are still in Congress. I wonder if we will start to see some Republicans now finally start to distance themselves from the big lie and defense of January 6 to basically say, it wasn't me who sent that text. S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You would hope so, because that

text is incredibly damning. It's essentially watching in real time someone cook up an election scam, and say, listen, while democracy is happening, right, while votes are being counted -- that's democracy -- while democracy is doing its job, let's try to meddle in this election.

And the alarming part is when he or she refers to the R-controlled statehouses, essentially, I assume, suggesting that they have enough influence over Republican governors and election officials in those states to sort of cajole them to go along with them on this election scam.

It's -- it is alarming and appalling. And I would hope, at the very least, that Republicans want to distance themselves from that. Unfortunately, we have seen far too little of that kind of courage in the past.

CABRERA: Committee Chair Bennie Thompson says they will decide in the next week or so on when to release the names of the authors of those texts.

Elie, why aren't they naming names on these lawmaker texts? Does that strike you as odd?

HONIG: It does. I think this is Congress protecting its own.

Look, the committee has told us, we can't disclose these names because it's an ongoing investigation and we need it to be confidential. Fine, but that's not what they're doing. They're freely disclosing the names of private citizens, Donald Trump Jr., Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham.

Look, one may love them or hate them or somewhere in the middle. They're private citizens. They're not entitled to worse treatment than members of Congress. And we have seen this also in the way they have subpoenaed people. They have sent dozens, if not hundreds of subpoenas, yet who have they not subpoenaed? Kevin McCarthy and Jim Jordan, fellow members of Congress who we know had contact with Donald Trump at key moments in January 6.

I think it's a form of cronyism, and I think it's hypocritical by Congress and the committee.

CABRERA: What do you think -- I wonder, S.E. Cupp, if it just has something to do with them trying to bring Republicans along their investigation, not trying to throw extra flames of division in the mix?

CUPP: I don't know. I believe that we will learn who these people are.

I think Bennie Thompson suggested -- I think it was him -- that we will learn of these names, there's not more than 10, and we won't be surprised by who they are.

So, I think maybe this is part of a shock and awe strategy.